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— Intro DialogueDespite looking frail and weak, Emperor Palpatine is equipped with a variety of combat and support abilities to help turn the tide of battle. Darth Sidious can also use the Force to block a variety of attacks and weapons.

Force Lightning: This ability fires a large, continuous burst of lightning towards enemies in front of Palpatine, inflicting constant damage at a rapid pace. Although extremely deadly at close range, the ability has a very restricted range.

Chain Lightning: This fires a single large burst of electricity with a greater range than the default force lightning. When fired, the Chain lightning will attach itself to a target within range and then spread to all nearby valid targets as well, killing them instantly in most cases. This ability briefly immobilises the Emperor upon use.

Force Dash: This move allows Palpatine to quickly dash forward in the direction he is moving. This manoeuvre appeared in Star Wars: Episode 3: Revenge of The Sith.

Imperial Resources: This support ability spawns a basic power-up for all infantry, barring Palpatine's Royal Guards. On Heroes vs. Villains and Hero Hunt, in lieu of spawning this, a Hero Health Pickup is spawned, obtainable by any hero (even those of the enemy team). This gives the Emperor up to 50% health, although this varies for other heroes, such as Darth Vader, whose health is naturally higher than that of his fellow heroes, causing him to only regain around 20-30% health. The health pickup is also spawned on the offline modes of Skirmish and Battles.

Royal Guard: Imperial players can choose to spawn next to Palpatine (whenever he is in play) as a Royal Guard. They are equipped with buffed T-21 and T-21B Blasters as well as Smart Rockets, and Homing Shots as reusable Star Cards. A maximum of two Imperial Guards can be on the map at a time.

Note that, prior to the Bespin update, these Royal Guards were instead Shocktroopers, although their abilities and statistics were identical.

Force flight: Unlike in the original games Palpatine does not hover constantly. Instead of a regular jumping ability, Palpatine will instead use the force to "fly" several feet off the ground and slowly descend back to the ground afterwards. While doing this he can still use his Force dash ability upward to gain altitude quickly (therefore making his flight ability superior to that of Darth Vader's or any other heros' jump ability) before descending. This force ability provides much more altitude compared to other jump abilities, albeit more slowly and gradually.

"Block": Palpatine can use the force to block attacks in a similar fashion to other force wielders and even block lightsaber strikes. Palpatine's blocking ability absorbs all blaster shots directed towards him, however, it does not reflect the shots towards the player's crosshair as is the case with Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader, instead the shots are simply absorbed while any damage dealt by them will be negated. Normal blaster shots will be blocked with no damage dealt, explosive projectiles such as Bowcasters, Homing Shots and Explosive Shots, will be blocked but Palpatine will still suffer splash damage while solid projectile weapons such as the Cycler Rifle or Scatter Gun, cannot be blocked at all.

Emperor Palpatine was given a hero trait, along with the other vanilla heroes in Battlefront, as a part of the Scarif DLC patch. Emperor Palpatine's trait gives him an increased amount of lightning sustainability with each kill or damage dealt to opposing heroes. This means that as Emperor Palpatine increases his trait level, he will be able to use his main lightning attack for a greater period of time. As Emperor Palpatine's trait level increases, his lightning usage rate will decrease. In addition, his lightning recharge rate will increase. With this trait, Emperor Palpatine will be able to use his lightning attack to a much greater extent against his enemies, thus, making him a greater attack threat on the Battlefront to pair with his characteristics as a support hero as well.

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"Emperor Palpatine eliminates whole groups of enemies at a time using his powerful manipulation of the Force to slow, stun, and pummel them with lightning."

— In-game Description

The sinister ruler of the Galactic Empire is a daunting opponent. The Emperor's mastery of the dark side allows him to wield terrifying powers against the forces of good.

Palpatine returns in Battlefront II as a hero for the Galactic Empire. Compared to the previous game, his main force lightning attack has been drastically weakened. It now deals far less damage, runs out of energy faster and does not prevent enemies from retaliating while they are being damaged by it. Palpatine is also now completely unable to block attacks directed towards him, making him weaker in a straight-up fight.

Palpatine's force lightning attack behaves a little differently in that it is now a two-part attack. Palpatine can now cast force lightning with both of his hands individually, both the left and right hand have separate overheat mechanisms, meaning that alternating back and forth between the left and right hands allows the player to sustain a constant barrage of lightning, albeit with a far weaker damage profile. As a third alternative, the player can also cast force lightning using both hands simultaneously, providing double damage in exchange for a noticeably faster overheat.

Palpatine's ability setup has also been changed. He retains the Chain lighting ability but is no longer able to spawn health pickups or use Force Dash. Those abilities have been replaced with Dark Aura and Electrocute, and the latter has been replaced with a much more usable substitute for the combat roll.

In addition to his main lightsaber, Emperor Palpatine also used several backup lightsabers throughout his life. He however, greatly disliked using lightsabers of any kind, preferring to use force-based attacks instead, which is the reason why Palpatine's lightsaber is not included with him in the games.

After the Hero Starfighters Update in July 2018, Emperor Palpatine was temporarily removed from the game via a "killswitch" after his lightning attacks were broken; in addition to being able to shoot through walls again, the auto targeting/auto aiming of his lightning attacks were deemed too strong, and as a result, Palpatine was removed from the game in order to be rebalanced.

"Kill switches" for heroes were implemented in the behind-the-scenes of the game by the developers at EA DICE after an exploit in Battlefront allowed Lando Calrissian to shoot his homing power blast infinitely with no cooldown.